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Please suggest sensible "once-only" backup solution

rjalex

rjalex

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 27, 2011
274
62
Rome, Italy
Dear friends,
I have resigned from my company and in a few weeks need to wipe my MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018) hard disk and return it to my fomrer employee.

I wish to backup my entire Documents folder in case I'll ever need a document I have on that machine in the future. This might happen but not sure I'll ever need them. Just in case.

What would be a sensible support to backup to this one time with a good probability the data will be readable for 2-3 years in the most economic way?

Thank you very much.
 
Most economic way? If that’s not too much data, probably BD-XL drives. They are available in capacities up to 100GB as fas as I know and are not too pricey. You’ll obviously need a compatible burner but that can be borrowed.

Or you could also get a pair of external HDDs, ditto your Documents onto them and do a disk check + refresh every two years.
 
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Apple_Robert said:
The quickest and most reliable way is to use Carbon Copy Cloner. You can back up your Mac for free using the app. Make sure you have an external drive large enough to copy all the contents you want from your work Mac.
Click to expand...

That would work, but it would 'clone' the entire machine, which could open up a lot of issues regarding security, non-compete, etc... Grabbing your docs could too, but it's not unreasonable to back up stuff. I've done it before, if nothing else as CYA...

Just copying the documents folder, and any files off of a server drive would be easier with a standard hard drive. I like simple, and that is pretty simple... *shrug* You can go more complicated, but, why?
 
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PinkyMacGodess said:
That would work, but it would 'clone' the entire machine, which could open up a lot of issues regarding security, non-compete, etc... Grabbing your docs could too, but it's not unreasonable to back up stuff. I've done it before, if nothing else as CYA...

Just copying the documents folder, and any files off of a server drive would be easier with a standard hard drive. I like simple, and that is pretty simple... *shrug* You can go more complicated, but, why?
Click to expand...
You can select any single file or folder you want to clone. You don't have to clone the entire drive with CCC.
 
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Not possible to give you an answer without knowing how much data you need copied. You said it’s a documents folder, so you might not need much space.

If it’s under 15 GB, I’d suggest you copy the folder on a 16 GB USB stick and then upload a backup copy to Google Drive (you get a free 15 GB with a gmail account).

Or just skip the USB drive and keep it in the cloud. As long as you use your gmail at least once every 2 years, the documents folder will be there forever.
 
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OP is asking about a Long-Term Archive, suggesting backup tools like CCC is not helpful. Data on a HDD will degrade over time, so a HDD in itself is not a reliable archiving solution. One needs to take precautions abs refresh the data periodically.

Not to mention that there is no need in paying for CCC just to archive some files. CCC is essentially a GUI wrapper over rsync which is included with macOS for free.
 
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PinkyMacGodess said:
Yeah, Time Machine takes a L---O---N---G T---I---M---E to backup stuff. It's better to just copy stuff IMO...
Click to expand...

The time to make a first copy of a drive is the same for Time Machine or any other solution. For subsequent delta backups, Big Sur Time machine is very fast since it synchronizes file system snapshots directly. Other tools do per-file copy.
 
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leman said:
OP is asking about a Long-Term Archive, suggesting backup tools like CCC is not helpful. Data on a HDD will degrade over time, so a HDD in itself is not a reliable archiving solution. One needs to take precautions abs refresh the data periodically.

Not to mention that there is no need in paying for CCC just to archive some files. CCC is essentially a GUI wrapper over rsync which is included with macOS for free.
Click to expand...
There is a 30 day free trial with CCC.

Unless a HD is defective, it will last years. There is nothing wrong with suggesting a HD external drive. Once the OP has the data copied to the HD, he can copy it elsewhere as well, should he wish.
 
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Apple_Robert said:
There is a 30 day free trial with CCC.
Click to expand...

And ditto or rsync are free, take a second to fire up and will do essentially the same thing.

Apple_Robert said:
Unless a HD is defective, it will last years. There is nothing wrong with suggesting a HD external drive. Once the OP has the data copied to the HD, he can copy it elsewhere as well, should he wish.
Click to expand...

You can expect data on a HDD to remain without degradation for at least three to five years. As I mentioned before, I’d recommend to do a refresh at least every two years, ideally more frequently. High capacity optical media will last hundreds of years.
 
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If you have room on your own personal computer, just make a folder and call it "documents from (whatever)" and copy them there. If you take care to back up your own computer, these will be protected with the rest of your stuff.
 
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leman said:
The time to make a first copy of a drive is the same for Time Machine or any other solution. For subsequent delta backups, Big Sur Time machine is very fast since it synchronizes file system snapshots directly. Other tools do per-file copy.
Click to expand...

Time Machine does a 'per file copy' too, because you can open the drive, and copy files out of the folders on the drive.

Yes, a 'new epoch' is going to take a lot of time, because it seems to not only grab everything, but it also seems to not want to bury the system with its overhead too.

My company used to sell a backup solution that was pretty bulletproof, except that if you triggered a 'new epoch', it took FOREVER to get that first backup done. It scaled its server demand to not take over a certain % of CPU, and on one client's server, took nearly a week to get the epoch complete. The incremental backups were really quick, like REALLY quick. I created a few files, and the next day tried to get them back, and *BANG*, they were able to be restored, completely. I was really surprised because the previous night's incremental took less than 2 minutes, to an RDX drive. Wow...

I've done full restores from Time Machine, so, well, the question to ask is: Is the overhead for Time Machine worth it. Hmm...

I used to use backup software from a small company, like decades ago, and can't remember the name of it. I did a backup of an iMac here, and then tried to restore some of the data, and they had a new version for the new OS, and it turned out to be TOTALLY INCOMPATIBLE with the earlier version of their software. Great way to get me to drop your crap forever. *sigh*

I've learned to be very careful when using 'software' to backup important files. Once bitten, twice shy. I had a bunch of 3.5" floppy disks that I backed up a MBP with, and the danged disks wouldn't work because the stickum on the metal disks failed and I couldn't mount them! Total waste of time... There could have been hundreds of pictures, and tons of data that I didn't know I couldn't live without on those disks. FOMO!!!:oops::oops::oops:
 
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PinkyMacGodess said:
I didn't know that. But still, isn't copying folders easier? *shrug*
Click to expand...

Easier yes, but less reliable.

For example, a large documents folder might have many thousands of files and copying it all in one go by simply dragging it could mean the copy fails and stops on one file it can’t read. Then you would have to start from scratch and hope it doesn’t happen again. Using something like CarbonCopy will much more likely continue plodding through, not stop and report any issues to you at the end.

Of course the easier option could be taken by copying in multiple steps, which is what I often do in scenarios like this- and yes I do get quite a few frustrating file read errors still especially from mechanical drives, so should take my own advice. (Note to self).
 
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ader42 said:
Easier yes, but less reliable.

For example, a large documents folder might have many thousands of files and copying it all in one go by simply dragging it could mean the copy fails and stops on one file it can’t read. Then you would have to start from scratch and hope it doesn’t happen again. Using something like CarbonCopy will much more likely continue plodding through, not stop and report any issues to you at the end.

Of course the easier option could be taken by copying in multiple steps, which is what I often do in scenarios like this- and yes I do get quite a few frustrating file read errors still especially from mechanical drives, so should take my own advice. (Note to self).
Click to expand...

Well, I did have an EXFAT drive that went totally sideways after trying to copy files to/from it. It just stopped working. I could see the files, and could not copy anything off. I couldn't copy anything to the drive either. I ended up having to hook it to my Windoze server, and copy everything off of it, and then low leveled it, and then formatted it on the IMP, and it worked fine. Weird...

I really have no idea what happened. It *should* have worked. It *was* working. Then *BAM* it wasn't. That kind of thing can happen at any moment on a mac, from my experience. I have no idea what 'charmed' that drive, but, I was just glad to have gotten everything off of it.
 
rjalex said:
Dear friends,
I have resigned from my company and in a few weeks need to wipe my MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018) hard disk and return it to my fomrer employee.

I wish to backup my entire Documents folder in case I'll ever need a document I have on that machine in the future. This might happen but not sure I'll ever need them. Just in case.

What would be a sensible support to backup to this one time with a good probability the data will be readable for 2-3 years in the most economic way?

Thank you very much.
Click to expand...
Not the question you asked.

But I’d make sure that the data you’re taking is yours to take and isn’t the property of your employer.
 
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One time? If you mean just one set of data backed up once and don’t need a recurring backup, then definitely just drag it to an external hard drive. Or a flash drive if it’s a small enough amount of data.

That being said, a hard drive sitting on the shelf for 2-3 years *should* be fine, but redundancy is key. I’ve seen hard drives fail and people lose their entire photo collection of their kids growing up. It’s rough. Keep one copy on the shelf and another copy somewhere else. (A hard drive at a friend/family’s house, or a cloud storage like backblaze, iCloud, etc. encrypt it if you’re worried about security on the cloud platform).
 
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